The Origin of the World According to Revelation and ScienceDawson, John William, Sir
Religion
The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science
Dawson, John William, Sir
Bible and science; Religion and science
What, then, are the facts in the case of man? In producing crosses of
distinct species, as in the case of the horse and ass, breeders are
obliged to resort to expedients to overcome the natural repugnance to
such intermixture. In the case of even the most extreme varieties of
man, if such repugnance exists, it is voluntarily overcome, as the
slave population of America testifies abundantly. By far the greater
part of the intermixtures of races of men tend to increase of vital
energy and vigor, as in the case of judicious crosses of some domestic
animals. Where a different result occurs, we usually find sufficient
secondary causes to account for it. I shall refer to but one such
case--that of the half-breed American Indian. In so far as I have had
opportunities of observation or inquiry, these people are prolific,
much more so than the unmixed Indian. They are also energetic, and
often highly intellectual; but they are of delicate constitution,
especially liable to scrofulous diseases, and therefore not
long-lived. Now this is precisely the result which often occurs in
domestic animals, where a highly cultivated race is bred with one that
is of ruder character and training; and it very probably results from
the circumstance that the progeny may inherit too much of the delicacy
of the one parent to endure the hardships congenial to the other; or,
on the other hand, too much of the wild nature of the ruder parent to
subsist under the more delicate nurture of the more cultivated. This
difficulty does not apply to the intermixture of the Negro and the
European, though between the pure races this is a cross too abrupt to
be likely to be in the first instance successful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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